B90X

I'm sure you've all heard of P90X, the insane workout program that gets you buff in like 90 days (if it doesn't kill you first). Well, the pastor of Elevation Church in North Carolina created the B90X program, which he describes as: "a revolutionary system of intense, truth-absorbing, brain-busting Bible reading that will transform your understanding of Scripture from intro to nitro in just 90 days! Your personal trainer, Ruach “The Breath” Yahweh, will drag you through the most intense infusion of His vision that you have ever experienced and you won’t believe the results!"

I've done the "bible in a year" schedule, but have decided to take on the B90X challenge and I want to challenge you to do it to! If people are willing to take the P90X challenge so they can have great abs, shouldn't we be willing to push ourselves for God?

If you can't get the picture to work for you, you can go to: http://studentministry.org/ym-resources/B90X.pdf

What is worship?

This is what I wrote for my page in the church newsletter...

If you have had an opportunity to attend the 8:50 service on Sunday mornings then you may have noticed that things have looked a little bit differently the past month or so. We have aimed to redirect the focus back toward the cross. Our hope and desire is for our members and visitors to experience a more life-changing worship experience so that they can take that experience and completely change their lifestyles.

When I think about worship, I don’t think about songs that we may sing, or dancing, or really anything having to do with music. I think of worship as a lifestyle both in and outside of church. The Apostle Paul helps Christians gain a better understanding of true worship in his letter to the Romans.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will. - Romans 12:1,2 (NIV)

I really like how Eugene Peterson states that first verse in The Message. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering”

Paul sums worship up pretty easily. It’s a lot more than what we do each Sunday morning. It’s how we live our lives everyday. It’s sacrificing your life each and everyday to God. When I think about sacrifices in the Old Testament, they are always called to be perfect. When an animal was to be sacrificed, it was to be always be the very best animal that the person doing the sacrificing had available. This mentality should mold our daily lifestyle sacrifices to God, causing us to say: “God, let everything I do today be for Your glory” and allowing that mentality to be the determining factor of what we do, causing us to give and do our very best for God at all times.

You ready for this?

So, I've been meaning to write this blog for over a week now, I'm just such an excellent procrastinator that I would've hated to do it when I had originally planned. This is one of those deep thought provoking theological posts that probably won't get any comments, but should get you thinking outside the box. Are you ready? This may even blow your mind! (Or you may have already come up with this "what if" epiphany and just failed to inform me about it. If that's the case, shame on you for not sharing your own epiphany).

Ok, I've been going through the book "Wild at Heart" with one of my recently graduated seniors and in one of the chapters, Eldredge quotes some of Revelation 12. I have read this passage before but never had this epiphany before. Just shows the value of reading Scripture daily no matter how many times you've read it before b/c God is always prepared to teach us something new.

Revelation 12:1-5 gives the introduction and description of an enormous red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads that is wanting to destroy the male child that is about to be born to a woman and will "rule all the nations with an iron scepter." The child is born and snatched up to God and His throne while the woman fled into a desert place prepared for her by God. Then beginning in Revelation 12:7...

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

Now, here and in Isaiah is where (to the best of my knowledge) the Christian faith has developed the story of Satan causing a big ruckus and being thrown out of heaven with all his "angels." And we expect that this happens at some point either before or during creation, before Adam & Eve first sin....because Satan is obviously on the earth to tempt Eve. There is a lot of theological discussion to be had simply in those previous two sentences that I am not going to cover.

I want to really focus on the Garden of Eden, Adam, Eve, and the first temptation. So, we know that Satan tempts Eve with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. What was the fruit? I think we have no comparison, because it was obviously the only tree of its kind so I would imagine its fruit was one-of-a-kind as well.

Growing up, I've always been taught and seen pictures of the "Fall of Man" with Adam, Eve, a tree, and a snake. But Scripture never calls the crafty tempter a snake, only "the serpent." Our idea today of a serpent is a snake, but what about thousands of years ago? What if the serpent is this enormous red dragon? Remember Revelation 12:9 says: "The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray." If I'm Eve, and see this amazing dragon, I'm gonna be both scared and in awe at such a creature that can talk! I know it would be way easier for a dragon to tempt me to eat fruit from a tree than it would be for a snake. Just like it would be easier for a lion to tempt me to eat than it would for a house cat. Something about the awesomeness of the creature.

And think about the curse that God puts on the serpent in Genesis 3:14. "So the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.'" For starters, the curse kinda drops the serpent on the "wild animal power rankings" below like everything! Which also means that he was probably ahead of at least most things before the curse. Snake? Not so much. A dragon? I'd say so! Then there's the other part of the curse. The serpent is forced to crawl on its belly and eat dust for the rest of its life. This obviously means that it wasn't crawling on its belly before! Let's say a dragon has wings and legs. If you take those away, what is its only mode of transportation? Crawling on its belly. In fact, if you think about a dragon and take away its legs and wings, what does it look like? It looks like a huge snake in my mind! (I just think about the movie Anaconda or something).

That's all that I could think of while writing this post, I'm sure theres more stuff in my head that won't make its way to the surface right now.

So, the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Was it a snake like we've been taught since we were little kids or was it a powerful dragon? Think about it and let me know what you come up with.

Ankle Update

Well, I went to the orthopedist yesterday and got some great news. There aren't any torn ligaments in my ankle. It was just a high ankle sprain (which is a lot worse than a normal ankle sprain) and a bone contusion (which means when I did it two bones hit together and bruised each other). The only real dilemma that I may face is if the bone contusion actually caused one of the bones to chip off in which case I'll probably have to have arthroscopic surgery to take the bone chip out. But, the doctor doubts that will be the case. So, the doctor told me to start walking on it and lose the crutches as soon as it feels strong enough b/c no further damage would occur. Needless to say, I woke up this morning and decided that I was ready to lose the crutches. So I wrapped an ACE bandage, strapped on a "floppy" ankle brace, strapped on my stirrup ankle splint/brace, and somehow put on a tennis shoe. Let's just say, I now know how Kiley felt playing basketball. But I've been walking all morning...very cautiously and with a bit of a limp.

One Body, Many Parts

In the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to the church in Corinth about the “Body of Christ” and how the church is one body made up of many parts. Many of us have read or heard Paul’s message that God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. Paul is teaching the church in Corinth that it is good for the members of the church to have different gifts and abilities and that no gift is greater than any other. This is definitely a great message, but there is another lesson in this chapter that often gets overlooked.

In verses 25 and 26, Paul writes: “so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” I recently hurt my ankle playing softball and the doctors think that I have a torn ligament. So for the past week and a half, I have been hobbling around on crutches trying to keep up with teenagers and make it up the stairs at my apartment. But my injury has helped me develop a greater appreciation for the idea that Paul presents in verses 25 and 26. Because of the injury to my ankle, my entire body has suffered. My whole left leg has been exhausted from holding the entire weight of my body and my arms, hands, and wrists have been sore from doing half of my walking that they are definitely not used to.

I’ve realized this past week just how important it is, not only for every “body part” to play it’s role, but for the other parts of the body to be ready and willing to step up and carry the weight and tasks of the body when an individual part has been injured. The same is true in our church today. Not only is it important for every individual to understand and DO his/her role in the church. It is also important for us (the people a.k.a. body parts) to be there for each other when someone else has been “injured.” It may be an actual physical injury, an emotional injury, or a spiritual injury; but I promise you that there are those in our church that are hurting and needing comfort. You may be the one that is hurt but trying to act like your not. I hope you wouldn’t ignore a broken foot and continue to walk on it. You need to recognize the problem and allow an opportunity for it to heal. If you are hurting, don’t be too prideful to admit it and ask for help. The rest of your “church body” would love to be there for you. Remember: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it, if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

A New Injury!

Well, I've dislocated my shoulder so many times that it was starting to get boring so I've decided to venture out and discover new ways to injure myself. So, last Friday night, I found a new way; although it really feels like I just decided to pick up where Kiley left off. While pitching with the bases loaded the ball was slowly grounded back about half way between me and home. I picked it up and decided to just step on home when I realized that the person running home was much faster than I had originally realized, so I went a little faster and as I was about to tag him, he slid. I tagged him out but to keep from stepping on him, I guess I planted my toe into the ground while the rest of my momentum carried forward. Needless to say, I (and my catcher) heard my ankle pop about 3 times. Knowing that I had slightly sprained my ankle, I waited for the ump to call the runner out (I was prepared to argue if he'd had been called safe). He called him out, I made my way to the dugout when all the sudden the adrenaline wore off and my ankle just started killing me. I couldn't put any pressure on it and when I looked down it was already swollen out of my shoe. I quickly realized that I wasn't gonna be able to "walk it off" like I had originally planned and made my way off the field to lay down, elevate and ice it. Eventually, as the pain got so bad that I was turning pale and shaking, we decided to go to a doctor. Nothing broken, but severely sprained with a possible torn ligament or two (which would be much worse than a break). I haven't been able to walk on it after 4 days and crutches while living on the second floor of an apartment has gotten real annoying. I've decided that dislocating a shoulder is much better than hurting anything that effects walking. Here are some pictures showing how swollen it all is from shin to toes.

"Prettier Than You"

Here is a music video that my youth group made. The song is called "Prettier Than You." The lyrics were written by one of my recent graduates, Zac and I tweaked the words and added music to make an actual song. It is meant as a funny song so don't take offense to the words, they are only to make you laugh. And if your thinking, how could a youth pastor promote a song like this...get over it, I am promoting humor and creativity.